In December, General Motors announced that it would phase out its Oldsmobile line by 2004. Thus the oldest name in American automobiles will disappear, after 107 years. This is important, of course, only symbolically. The history of the American economy is littered with the once-great names of products and companies that have fallen victim to the creative destruction of capitalism. RCA, Pan American World Airways, Montgomery Ward, and TWA all have vanished in recent years.Read more »

THEY SIT LIKE RUINED VILLAS IN THE distant reaches of mall parking lots, in inner-city neighborhoods and backcountry towns, dressed no longer in bright colors but in gray patches and orange primer, the last Chevelles and Biscaynes, GTOs and Sting Rays, the dying echoes of the stylistic opera of Bill Mitchell.Read more »